Not applicable
Many prior arts have dealt with the thermostat improvement for air conditioning and heating systems, however, the most of them are trying to make the thermostat system more effective for individual room units. Since the advent of microprocessor and microcontroller, many microprocessor based temperature control systems have emerged for multi room facilities such as hotels, motels and apartment buildings. The most important factor for producing a new product is the marketability in the targeted field. To that end, the product should be reliable for the objectives, economical to produce and maintain, easy to use and install (such devices as temperature control system), and durable to meet the objectives. Some prior arts have very extensive and versatile functionality but they are very complex to use, maintain, and install them. Some prior inventions are quite simple to use them but have very limited versatility.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,682,949, describes a energy saving system for hotel and motel facilities, which connects all rooms serially by wiring them for signal or data communications. The system includes a computer for central control and operation, master nodes and local nodes for intermediate control, and slave nodes, which are thermostat. The art seems bearing following shortcomings (1) wiring to all rooms require materials and technical labor, (2) extra devices for local nodes and master nodes bears more expenses, (3) since slave nodes are connected serially, each node should have it""s own address different from others and should be configured separately. When a node goes bad, an ordinary technician can not just buy one and replace it with a defected one. It should be done by somebody who knows the procedure how to configure the address of the node. (4) Only trained person can install and configure the system, not by the hotel technician or maintenance man. (5) System users, in this case front desk clerk, should go through an extensive training program to learn how to use the system including the computer. (6) On the serially connected loop of rooms, if at any point, connection is damaged or broken, the rooms connected after that point can not be controlled by the central control device. As of the U.S. Pat. No. 5,318,224, the prior art utilizes telephone communication system to remotely control a heating system, however, it""s remote control functionally, according to the specification and drawings of the art, is limited only to turning on or off the heating system. It does not describe anything about the specifics on the remote-controlling device, which seems a telephone unit. To effectively control the energy usage, the prior art is employing different levels of temperature settings based on the status of a room whether the room is occupied or unoccupied. The status is determined locally by a motion detector, which monitors a movement inside the room indicating that the room is occupied. According to the specifications and drawings, the art does not seem having manual control means for the temperature limiting setting instead it has a heating time control feature. Preset temperature values 65 degrees and 45 degrees are mentioned, but those values seem loaded by the program. If a circumstance arises to change those values, the change should be done in the program, which requires time and effort. A/D converter and temperature sensor circuits can be replaced by one chip, which embeds A/D converter into a new temperature sensor, which arrangement can save space, cost, and labor time. The U.S. Pat. No. 4,552,999, titled xe2x80x9cTelephone Activation Apparatusxe2x80x9d improved the heating and air conditioning control system by adding remotely activating features to it. The feature can only turn heating/cooling system on or off, and is not much beneficial to the hotel or motel management.
The objective of the present invention is to control the energy consumption more effectively for a hotel/motel facility by adding the followings specified in the summary section.
The present invention is aimed at providing an efficient multifunctional energy control system for hotel and motel facilities where the energy expenses account for large percent of their facility operating budgets. As part of overall plans to meet the above objectives for this invention, a central controller located in the front office assumes important role to implement various controls for all rooms uniformly. By maintaining individual room""s list of occupancy status whether a room is occupied or vacant, the central controller can set different level of maximum or minimum temperature setting based on them.
When a guest check out of a room, the desk clerk presses keys for the room number and xe2x80x9cOUTxe2x80x9d key on the central controller board, then following will happen: (1) an LED representing the room number is turned off, (2) the preset temperature limit number stored in the microcontroller of the central controller is downloaded into the memory of the local controller box in said room from where it controls heater or air conditioner, (3) it will also turn off the LED on the local controller box, signaling that the room is vacant.
When a maid finishes cleaning of the room and pushes the ready button of the local controller box in the room, (1) it will turn on the LED in the room and the LED representing the room on the LED Matrix Board in the central office, in green color, this signifies the room is ready to sell.
When the desk clerk checks in a guest into a room, the clerk pushes appropriate keys for the room number and pushes the xe2x80x9cInxe2x80x9d button on the central controller board, the followings will happen:
(1) Both statuses LEDS, one on the local controller box in the room and one on the LED Matrix section on the central controller in the front office turn on in red color, signing that the room is occupied.
(2) The preset limit temperature value stored in the memory of the central control board is downloaded into the memory of the local controller box in the room, which is actually controlling temperature of the room.
For all the operations described above, what the front desk clerks have to know is using keypad to select a room number and xe2x80x9cINxe2x80x9d key or xe2x80x9cOUTxe2x80x9d key to distinguish whether the room is checked in or checked out. All the rest of the activities are performed automatically and remotely by the two microcontrollers, one on the central controller board and one on the local controller box.
If a situation arises where it is necessary to change the preset limit temperature, possibly due to the weather changes or seasonal changes, maintenance man or a manager would do this operation most likely. Whoever doing this task would just push xe2x80x9cUPDATExe2x80x9d button on the central controller board, then type in 2 digits representing the new desired limit value for occupied status in Fahrenheit and followed by another 2 digits for vacant status. Hysteresis values are automatically calculated by the microcontroller. Those 2 values are kept in the memory of the microcontroller in the central controller board.
Whenever a room is checked in or checked out, the appropriate value is downloaded instantly into the microcontroller memory in the local controller box of the room, this downloaded preset limit value is compared with the actual ambient temperature value read by the temperature sensor device. If the difference is significant enough to exceed the hysteresis value, it will activate the appropriate heating or cooling unit to adjust the temperature toward the preset limit value.
As explained so far, the functions of the central controller are performed either by desk clerks or maintenance person.
As for the local controller, the preset limit temperature values and the room occupied status data are downloaded from the central controller. However, this invention allows guests to adjust the preset limit value with the increase and decrease button switches on the local controller box in the room. Every time the xe2x80x9cUPxe2x80x9d arrow button is pushed, the limit temperature value is incremented by one degree from the previously set value. The xe2x80x9cDOWNxe2x80x9d arrow button brings just the opposite result. When room cleaning is finished, a house-keeper or head house keeper will pushes the xe2x80x9cREADYxe2x80x9d button enabling the room lighting and notifying the front office that the room is ready to sell. This procedure also changes the color of both statuses LEDS in green color.